Singapore church leader found guilty in $35m graft case

Mega-church founder convicted of misappropriating donations to support wife's singing career for "evangelical causes".

21 Oct 2015 06:08 GMT

The founder of a popular Singapore church has been found guilty of misappropriating more than $35.5m in donations to support his wife's singing career, in a rare case of graft in the city-state.

Kong Hee, the founder and senior pastor of City Harvest Church, was found guilty with five other church leaders of stealing $17m designated for building and investment-related purposes through sham bond investments.

The State Court also found that they used another $18.5m to hide the first embezzlement from auditors. It is a rare case of corruption of such magnitude in Singapore, which has an image of being highly law-abiding and largely graft-free.

"They were not genuine transactions because the accused persons controlled these transactions," presiding judge See Kee Onn said in finding Kong guilty on three counts of criminal breach of trust.

"Evidence points to a finding that they knew they were acting dishonestly, and I am unable to conclude otherwise," he told a courtroom packed with church supporters, who formed long queues since early morning to get seats.

No date for sentencing has been set. The penalty for criminal breach of trust is a maximum of life sentence. For falsifying accounts, the penalty is a maximum of 10 years in jail and a fine.

The trial has put so-called mega-churches, that have risen in popularity in the affluent island nation, in the spotlight.

Funding music to reach non-believers

Despite the evidence against the church leaders, supporters have rallied around them since the case started in 2012.

They felt funds were rightly used to finance the church's Crossover Project, with stated aims to use pop music to reach out to non-believers, of which Kong's wife, Ho Yeow Sun is the face.

The stolen money was first pumped into a music production firm and a glass manufacturer, but these companies were owned by longtime churchgoers and ultimately used funds to support the secular music pursuits of Ho in Asia and the US.